Whether you are sitting around a campfire, or drinking hot chocolate after a day in the snow, nothing says fun quite like a marshmallow! Even its name is soft and spongy! In this cooking and food science fair project, you will make your own marshmallows several different ways, and discover the three special ingredients that give marshmallows their unique texture. You will also find out why they melt so quickly. Explore the science of these sticky, spongy sweets!
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FoodSci_p065

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Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

Readily available

Cost

Very Low (under $20)

Safety

Be careful when heating syrup in the saucepan. Adult supervision is required.

Hot pancakes with butter running down the sides, freshly baked biscuits and pastries with butter, hot flaky potatoes with melted butter. Yum! It seems like everything tastes better when you add butter. But what is butter and how is it made? In this food science fair project, you will find out, and you will test different conditions for making butter and determine the best method.
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Caramelization is the name of the cooking process that occurs as sugar is heated and the molecules begin to break apart. But what happens to the sugar as it breaks apart? And what do the physical changes mean for the flavor of the sugar? Using the Internet or cookbooks, read up on the chemistry of caramelization, then head to the kitchen with an adult to caramelize your own batch of sugar. With an adult's help, dissolve 1 1/3 cups of sugar in 2/3 cup of water. Heat the mixture in a pan over…
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FoodSci_p018

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- Less Details

Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

Readily available

Cost

Very Low (under $20)

Safety

Use caution when making the caramel, it is extremely hot and can burn severely if it gets on your skin. Adult supervision is required.

Gelatin! It's hard to think of another food that is used as frequently on the dinner table as off. You can find it in all sorts of sweet foods, from ice cream, yogurt, and gummy bears, to marshmallows and yellow colorings for sodas. Off the table, it shows up in glues, photographic paper, playing cards, crepe paper, medicine capsules, hair gels, and professional lighting equipment. From the kitchen to the theater—what a range of uses! In this cooking and food science fair project, you'll…
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FoodSci_p047

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Time Required

Average (6-10 days)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

Readily available

Cost

Low ($20 - $50)

Safety

Adult supervision is recommended when using the knife and hot gelatin.

If you like to bake, this could be a good science project for you! Have you ever wondered about the purpose of each of the ingredients in your favorite recipes? For example, why is baking powder used in some muffin recipes? How does the baking powder affect how the muffins look, feel, and taste? In this food science project you will use a scientific method to find out!
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FoodSci_p007

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Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

Previous experience with baking is helpful, but not absolutely necessary.

Material Availability

Readily available

Cost

Low ($20 - $50)

Safety

Minor injury possible: hot oven. Be sure to have an adult help when using the oven.

Whipped egg whites are used in many sweet and savory recipes. They are used to add air into cake batters, meringues, and soufflés. Egg whites, also known as albumin are 15 percent protein dissolved into water. When egg whites are beaten or whipped, the protein chains unravel. This is called denaturation. The process of whipping egg whites adds air to the mixture, in addition to denaturing the proteins. The denatured proteins create bonds with each other and trap air bubbles within…
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Why are some fruits, like pineapple, not recommended for adding to gelatin? It is because the gelatin may not solidify well if it has these fruits in it. In this science project you will determine whether certain enzymes in some fruits are preventing gelatin from solidifying, and whether there is a way to still include these fruits without ruining your gelatin dessert. It is an experiment with edible results!
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FoodSci_p004

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Time Required

Very Short (≤ 1 day)

Prerequisites

None

Material Availability

Readily Available

Cost

Very Low (under $20)

Safety

Adult supervision is recommended for making the gelatin, which involves using boiling water and a knife to cut the fruits.

There's nothing quite like the smell of fresh-baked muffins for breakfast on a Saturday morning! If you're into baking, you might want to try this project, which will give you insight into some of the chemistry that's going on in your muffin batter. You'll get some practical knowledge about substituting ingredients. Who knows, it may even get you started on the path to some new culinary inventions!
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FoodSci_p008

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- Less Details

Time Required

Short (2-5 days)

Prerequisites

Previous experience with baking is helpful, but not absolutely necessary.

Did you know that you can make a simple hygrometer (a device for measuring the relative humidity of the air) with hair? This type of hygrometer is easy to build (for instructions, see: ). Does the type of hair used in the hygrometer affect the accuracy of the results? Do some types of hair respond faster than others? Do some types of hair give a larger (or smaller) response? You could get hair samples from classmates, or a local beauty shop. Use hair samples of equal length to construct…
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If you browse through a candy cookbook, you might notice that many of the recipes call for corn syrup in addition to sugar. Both sugar and corn syrup are sweet, so why do you need corn syrup if you already have sugar? In candy making, corn syrup is known as an interfering agent. But what does this mean and how does it work? You can find out for yourself by making two batches of rock candy, one with corn syrup and one without. For example, you could alter the science project by replacing 1…
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You can find this page online at: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/search.shtml?v=solt&pi=FoodSci_p022.shtml

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